Craig and Odim meet

One morning in June, Craig asked to meet with Odim. Blanchard had told Craig that Odim had not felt supported by the anaesthetic group and Craig wanted to find out what Odim was concerned about with respect to the anaesthetists and to see if he could address Odim's concerns. Craig recalled that Odim expressed the view that the number of anaesthetists involved in the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Program was too high. He felt that there should be fewer anaesthetists doing pediatric cardiac surgery in order to maximize their skills and knowledge. He felt-as did his predecessor Duncan-that with the low number of open-heart cases actually being performed in Winnipeg, having four anaesthetists rotating into the operations diluted their experience and made it difficult for them to develop appropriate levels of skill. Craig says that he listened to Odim voice his view but did not undertake to make any changes.

Craig held a different view as to the number of anaesthetists needed for the program.

I recognize it as a concern, but I don't really see the relevance. If you look at the anaesthetists, including myself, who practice in the teaching hospitals, St. Boniface, HSC, adult, pediatric, I would guess well over half of them aren't full time doing clinical anaesthesia. I think that's good, that some of them are doing research, some of them are working in the ICU. So to me it is the reality of modern anaesthetic practice, same here as elsewhere.

So to say that you have to have an anaesthetist working five days a week in the operating room or they are not a good anaesthetist, or they are not as good as if they were, it doesn't make sense. So I would like to put it in a different context; if somebody wanted to expose to me the logic as to why part time is bad, I would be delighted to look at it, but I don't believe it is. (Evidence, page 34,559)

Craig also testified that he did not believe that the fact that each of the anaesthetists was part-time reflected a lack of commitment on their part, an issue of concern to Odim.